Tuesday, January 13, 2009

BRUINS-CANADIENS PREVIEW

The Bruins haven't played Montreal since November 22nd, when the B's came out on top of a shootout.

Unlike last year, the Bruins have held the upper hand against the Canadiens. The B's are 2-0-1 against Montreal, including a 6-1 throttling on November 13th.

However, Montreal comes into this game riding a hot streak. They're 9-1-1 in their last 11, including victories over top teams like Washington and the Rangers. The Habs' power play unit has finally started to produced. They've scored on 6 of their last 18 power plays. And the thing Montreal has always been best at is drawing penalties.

Both these teams will score goals in this game, and it should be an exciting contest. But the last time these teams played, Montreal looked a bit rattled. They focused on hitting Milan Lucic and quickly wore themselves out in the 2nd period.

As a team they seemed to have calmed down, but a quick Bruin goal might unnerve them.

It won't be Carey Price in net for the Canadiens. 23 year old Jaroslav Halak will start for Montreal. He hasn't faced the Bruins since March 22nd of 2007. It's safe to say the Bruins are now a different team.

But the Bruins will be without Patrice Bergeron, Marco Sturm, and now Phil Kessel will be MIA. Kessel has mono and could be out for a month.

The NHL made a major mistake before this season by balancing the schedule. These two teams staged 2 fantastic early season battles, but haven't faced each other in over 50 days. After this game they'll only see each other twice in the regular season. It's a shame, because this is reemerging as a fantastic rivalry.